Governance and Ethics Committee approves naming-policy changes, removes donation criterion

The Governance and Ethics Committee approved revisions to Council Policy 35 governing the naming of city streets, parks and other facilities, voting unanimously to accept staff recommendations while removing the policy's donation-based naming criterion.

The changes, presented at the committee's May meeting, add streets explicitly to the policy title, ask advisory bodies to submit two to three name options for consideration, consolidate the Historical Landmarks Commission's (HLC) process into the policy, and clarify naming criteria. Committee members also agreed to delete the clause that allowed property donations to determine a name and asked staff to gather the city's donation policies for a separate review.

The amendments aim to create a consistent, documented process for naming and renaming city assets and to reduce ad-hoc or last-minute decisions. City staff said the draft clarifies how HLC, the Parks and Recreation Commission and governance would interact and that HLC would maintain an annually updated master list of approved names to use when appropriate.

City staff presented the proposed edits and background. Maria…